


The Searchers

by Vehemently



Category: Life
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-09
Updated: 2008-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vehemently/pseuds/Vehemently
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is it: A late-night interview. A confession. A turning point.<br/>Tagline: "What kind of people would revere somebody like you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Searchers

They have kept him in the interrogation room all day, painstaking, working out the details of his confession. Connie is there at every moment, and a press officer, and a public defender, and several other suits in and out of the room that are probably Internal Affairs. The City of Los Angeles wants everything neat and orderly and lawsuit-proof. Charlie doesn't know how much Kyle Hollis has told. He has been smart enough never to mention the name of Jack Reese for twelve years; but not so smart that more than one interested party couldn't find him within a day. It's a conundrum.

The room is silent. Now the sun has gone down, it is lit only with fluorescents, and looks much more like a waiting room for prison, which is what it is. People are fooled sometimes, in the daylight, with the modern wall of decorations and the narrow window (too narrow to climb through, in case of escape or suicide attempt). The public defender has a folding chair in the corner. He is a forgettable man, balding, wearing a brown suit that matches his skin color and is a little tight around the waist. He looks tired, and bored. He isn't talking to his client.

Kyle Hollis is sitting at the table with his hands flat on its surface. Of course; he is handcuffed; there aren't many places to put your hands. His enormous forehead is pointed downwards, casting his face into shadow. He doesn't look up when Charlie opens the door.

"We're on a break," says the public defender, shifting his feet to stand. His hand comes up, Stop, and shows his wedding ring glinting in the cold light.

Charlie says, "I know," and behind him Dani walks in. Charlie is not allowed in here without Dani, and even so Lieutenant Davis doesn't like it. Not that she likes anything. Charlie takes a chair and Dani takes a chair and they settle and then silence smothers the room again. The public defender clasps his hands in front of his stomach, like a city councilor at a ceremony.

The irritation of Dani Reese is palpable in the air; Charlie starts in sooner than he expected to:

"Kyle Hollis." Kyle does not move. His eyes are open but the lashes don't budge. "Kyle. Kyle Kyle Kyle."

Dani leans in. "Orson Parker. Mr. Parker. Reverend Parker." She is drawing out the Rs in that name with punitive pleasure. Charlie does not look over his shoulder, because he can already see in his mind the half-smile of antagonism on Dani's face.

Kyle raises his head. He isn't looking at Dani. His gaze is intense, unavoidable. His face is very strange, blunt and framed with the swooping gray at his temples, like the head of a hammer. Charlie has remarked to himself how strange those features are all day, as they have contorted into different expressions one after another. Of all the people on the planet, Charlie ranks himself in the top five of knowing the strangeness of Kyle Hollis's face, just on the basis of today.

Dani says, "You've been living in Indio five years, is that right, Reverend?"

The public defender grunts a little. Other people have already covered this material. Charlie doesn't disabuse them of the notion that this is still an interrogation.

"Yes," says Kyle. He is calm, patient. The furor of his preaching is absent, and so is the malevolence. His eye-color is like shallow water on a sunny day, translucent, meaningless.

"Reverend," Dani continues. "What kind of Reverend would that be? What kind of people would revere somebody like you?"

Kyle notices her for the first time. He tells her, "Mostly retired couples. Two or three recovering alcoholics. We're a congregation of about thirty. Bible study on Wednesdays." His eyebrows twitch as he takes in her presence. Charlie wonders whether there is a recognition there. She hasn't said her last name, and anyway Reese is a common name. "I guess you could say we spend most of our time on the Old Testament."

She leans forward, like a pouncing cat. "Bet your congregation would be pretty shocked to hear you butchered those people."

Kyle betrays no emotion. "Yes," he says. "They would." He is thinking, working at the reasons behind the topic, assessing Dani's good looks and her veiled annoyance. The lights buzz above them and Kyle has not yet guessed why they are here.

Charlie asks, "When you moved to Indio, is that when you adopted your daughter?"

"Funny," adds Dani, at once. "There's no record of that with social services --"

"Yes." Kyle returns his attention to Charlie. "That's when."

"Rachael. Her name is Rachael?"

"Yes." That strange face returns to life. He is that man again, that man pleading on a hillside for mercy, yellow dust on his expensive pants. "You were in my house."

"I was in your house twice, Kyle." Charlie keeps the public defender in his peripheral vision. He cannot have an interruption now. "The first time, it was to call in an ambulance."

Kyle fades, turns gray. Now he is that man with his mouth taped shut, watching the knife, waiting for it to strike or go away.

"Someone wanted you," says Charlie, "Someone faster than me. Someone drove up to Indio and didn't find you there and then they drove away."

Head down, Kyle manufactures a low hiss. "What did they do to her. What did they do to my --"

Charlie confesses: "I called the ambulance, Kyle. I sat on the floor next to her and I pulled a dish towel off the counter to stop the bleeding. I held her in my arms while she told me about the tape she made to watch while you were away." Grooves carve themselves around Kyle's eyes, around his grimacing mouth. The hills of his face catch a faint reflection of the overheads, and are illuminated, while the valleys stay in shadow. "Her head was in my lap while I talked to you on the phone."

Dani knows this part. It is not strange to say this part in front of her.

"I called the hospital this afternoon," Charlie tells him. "She was admitted for surgery. So I know she was still alive at lunchtime."

Dani is breathing fast, expecting an outburst. In front of them, Kyle rests his face on his manacled forearms. His shoulders heave once, twice. He doesn't make a sound.

The air in the room is heavy, conditioned, institutional. Charlie breathes it in. On the outbreath, he says, "I didn't recognize her. She'd grown so much. I hadn't seen her since she was seven." Kyle sits there with his face on his arms. Dani is unnaturally still, waiting for the question to develop. This is the part she doesn't know. With infinite gentleness, Charlie asks, "She's Rachael Seybolt, isn't she?"

Dani's chair creaks as she leans back suddenly. Charlie doesn't turn to look at her; she will back her partner's play even now. In the corner, the forgotten public defender brings up his hand again, Stop. "Wait, what?" he asks. Charlie ignores him.

Kyle mumbles into his hands: "She's a gift. She came to me as a gift. The fire burned me clean."

Head low, almost to the table, Charlie whispers at him, "Someone brought her to you?"

"She's a gift," came the strained response. "I devoted my life to her."

Dani's anger is everywhere in the room. Charlie is turning to put a hand out, to hold her back, but she is too fast. "Except for the part where you left her in the house to be shot by the people who wanted you dead, right?" Charlie misses with his hand. Dani is out of reach.

The bang of a chair hitting the floor. Kyle is on his feet. He has the sense to keep his hands down; the table that anchors him does not move. Standing, he can't reach to wipe the tears off his cheeks, and they shine icily under the lights. "You got no right --"

"No," Charlie tells him, affecting calm. "She has all the right in the world. She's the one who is going to find your daughter."

"...find?" Kyle wants to pace. The shift in his hips is obvious. But his hands are still cuffed to the table, steel not quite pulling at the skin hard enough to bruise. His shoes make noise on the floor and Charlie remembers he is wearing cowboy boots. They make him taller, almost as tall as Charlie is barefoot, but right now he is the only one standing and it doesn't offer him any advantage.

"We need you to file a missing persons report," Dani tells him, and puts the papers on the table. The briskness in her voice is as cruel as anything.

"She's missing?" Kyle's bewilderment encompasses them all, even the flabbergasted public defender.

"She's missing," Dani tells him, stone-faced. A few wisps of her hair have escaped her ponytail, and she tucks them behind her ears without a fuss. "Disappeared from the hospital."

"Tell you what, though," Charlie interjects. He puts on a grin, to see how Kyle will react. "Indio being two hours from here, and the amount of time I spent hauling you around the greater Los Angeles area, she has to have been out of surgery by the time they took her."

Now the public defender has both hands up. He looks like someone surrendering. He and Kyle make noises of shock in tandem.

"She wasn't even in the ICU," Charlie adds, brightly. "Do they have an ICU in the Desert Regional Medical Center? I think they do: it's a level II trauma center. But she was just in a regular recovery room. That's a good sign, Kyle."

Her wrist resting on the table, pen at the ready, Dani connects the dots for them. "Till somebody wheeled her away."

"And took all her paperwork, " Charlie continues.

"Right. All her paperwork. Like she was never there."

"I had to call back twice." Charlie pauses. He doesn't know what to make of this detail. "I called her Hollis, and then I remembered she didn't know your name was Kyle. So I called back and asked for Rachael Parker. And then I called again for Rachael Seybolt. Just to be sure."

Kyle explodes: "How can you say this? How can you do this? People don't just go missing from a hospital!" He is trying to pace, now, one stride and then the pull on his wrists, another stride in the opposite direction and the same abrupt stop. The public defender is as afraid of his client as he is of anything else. Charlie recognizes the man in the bank, waiting, half-thinking that he holds all the cards, but desperate underneath. It's amazing how many men Kyle Hollis has been.

"People don't just go missing from crime scenes," Charlie says softly. "People don't just change their names and free themselves from a life of crime."

"Oh wait," says Dani Reese, bitterness palpable.

"You have to find her." Kyle, imperious, standing over them. His hands are flat on the table to make his point. He can't sit down again until somebody rights his chair for him. "She's an innocent. You have to find her."

Dani leans in close to him, body low and her chin tilted up, to show him how little she cares about his height. "We'll find her," she says, without warmth. "That's what we do."

"She's an innocent," Kyle repeats, hoarse. The cuffs on his wrists jerk as he pulls, trying to cover his face with his hands. He thumps to his knees, hands up, chained to the table. Charlie has never seen this man before.

The public defender is standing, a-tremble. With bulky deliberation he picks up Kyle's chair, and sets it upright so it can be sat in. He puts his hand on Kyle's heaving shoulder and looks down his Roman nose at Charlie. "There's no need to be mean," he says. The anger flushes in his face. "He is cooperating, and you're mean to him?"

Dani tilts her head that way she has, that devastating way. "I have to be nice to murderers now?" she asks, and her white canines flash in a narrow little smile. Charlie puts his head down on the table, and talks to Kyle.

"She's an innocent," he says. "We're going to save her."

"But not for you," Dani finishes. She is already looking at Charlie when he turns his face up to her in surprise. She has sat back, pitiless, observing the whole room. Shoulders on the table, neck craned, Charlie realizes belatedly the position he is in. If she were to stand and rest the flat of her hand into his neck, and her other hand on his wrist, the warmth of her body pressing him down so he can't resist, and the cuffs flashing in the cold light -- His knuckles twitch, and he resists the panic in his ribs. Dani doesn't even glance at his body: just his face, just the matter at hand, and everything else can wait.

His back to his partner, Charlie rests his chin on the back of one hand. He assumes a conversational tone: "They don't even need her for herself. The guys who shot her are already dead: I killed them before they could get to you. She doesn't know anything. Does she, Kyle?"

"No," says Kyle. His voice is muffled by his hands. "I never told her. It was a miracle. She never guessed."

"Well, she might have guessed a little bit," Charlie interjects, sitting upright.

Dani says: "So the only reason they have her is you. If you talk now, if you give up everything you know, then she isn't valuable as a hostage any more."

"He could retaliate. He could hurt my little girl." Kyle swipes his runny nose on the back of his hand. He sits again in the chair. He is raising his head; he is over the shock of it and maybe ready to think. Charlie pats himself down for a tissue, but doesn't find any in his pockets.

"She's not your little girl," Dani corrects, venomous. "And if the guy you're protecting is that much of an asshole, what's to say he's treating her right as it is? Pretty inconvenient, caring for a gunshot victim."

"You don't know," Kyle tells her, and he's recovered enough to be looking right at her, right through her, through to her good bone structure and her cop-posture and the pugnacious readiness under it all. Charlie sits upright, a little alarmed. "You don't know," he says.

"How about you tell me," she breathes, half-seductive. "This is your chance to do right by her."

"He'll kill her," Kyle says.

"He'll kill her anyway," she snaps, without a pause.

Charlie knows, suddenly, how this is going to end. Dani's record can't bear another black mark like assaulting a prisoner in a high-profile case. He breaks their intimacy to ask, "Do you have any recent pictures of her? In your wallet, maybe, or a safety deposit box? Someplace other than in Indio?" His partner is eyeing him, her jaw set with irritation. Charlie doesn't know how to protect her.

"They searched my house," Kyle realizes.

The public defender interjects, "Whoa, whoa," and they all ignore him.

"They cleaned your house," Charlie says. "It's empty. Even the bloodstains are gone."

"So really," Dani adds, "she might as well not exist. No adoption papers, no birth certificate under her name, no mementoes: the only record we have of her is in your memory. If you don't talk, she'll never be found."

"Maybe she was a dream," says Charlie, slow. "Maybe she was a dream you're just waking up from. Or maybe you're the dream, and she's the one waking up."

"What the hell kind of bullshit is that?" Kyle asks, hysterical.

"It is zen bullshit," says Charlie with a smile. But Dani isn't interested in zen. She stares at Kyle until he meets her eyes, and then keeps staring until he can't meet her eyes any more. She really has a talent for that, Charlie has to hand it to her.

"This isn't about you," she tells Kyle. She leans forward to say it again: "This isn't about you. It's about her, and making her safe, and making her free. You can go to prison or you can go to protective custody or you can go to Hell for all I care. It's about her."

The lights reflect off Kyle's high forehead. He comes up at last, face forward, out of shadow. "Okay," he says, and his features open up. Charlie wonders whether this is the man Rachael knows, and calls Dad. "Okay." Kyle sounds exhausted. He sounds like he has let something go. Charlie watches the calm emerge in him, the stillness. He is about to speak the name Jack Reese and that name might mean his death and it will definitely mean something for Dani.

"This isn't about us," Charlie murmurs to himself. He can say it all he likes but he can't make it true. The tension is in his shoulders, in his back, ready for a fight. The best he can do is back his partner's play.

"Okay." Dani is all business. She flips open her notebook and clicks her pen. She doesn't know what's coming. "So tell me about Rachael."


End file.
